dave_j

Sadly, today, we heard that a mother of two died when an engine fan blade failed on a Southwest aircraft.

This event broke into all news channels and we hear that this event will be subject to intense investigation.

This fatality is the first US passenger carrier passenger accident death since 2009.

In the 8 years from 2009 to 2016 inclusive, the US road deaths totalled 237,854 or about 81 a day.

I don't mean to belittle the death of the poor woman on the Westjet airplane but where is the same concern for other 81 that died today on the US roads? Do we simply dismiss these deaths as too difficult to deal with because when it comes to aircraft accidents we can identify a cause?

I listen to the radio daily and every morning I hear of crash here, accident there and car in a ditch somewhere else. The real reason these things happen, the reason people die on the roads isn't because some fan blade equivalent on a car fails.... It's because the country is full of bloody useless, inconsiderate and incompetent drivers and nobody... that'll be nobody at all wants to say so.

Jingsamichty

Road deaths are deemed to be an acceptable price to pay for the benefits that we get from road transportation. Road deaths simply aren't newsworthy unless they are particularly gruesome or involve high numbers of casualties - the Humboldt tragedy made the news all around the world.

This aviation fatality is newsworthy because of its rarity AND because of its nightmarish gruesomeness... getting sucked out of a plane window literally is the stuff of disaster movies.

caretaker

If you are having the best day of your life but the unlucky fellow across the aisle is going to die in a plane crash you and the rest of the passengers are probably going with him. That's why airplane accidents are so news-worthy. If it had really happened on a Westjet plane it would be bigger news in Canada. The day of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash a bus went off a mountain road in India killing 23 kids but it's far away and barely made the news.

MillieF

You are entirely right Dave, but very sadly it is all relative. There are an awful lot of us on the planet and we come and go, with remarkable frequency on a daily basis. We can't care about them all, we'd go nuts. I do get down in the dumps sometimes when I think how easily I shrug off how very many people are hacking each other to death and just being thoroughly horrid to each other, but I don't know what to do about it. Ever since the invention of the wheel, it's been running people over one way or another and it isn't going to stop anytime soon. Cars don't kill, it's the idiots driving them, guns don't kill, it's the gits pulling the trigger. Should we have stricter driving laws and gun control? Most definitely.

She is 'just' a woman on a plane, but she could well be any of us, and I am sure that I am not the only one who has imagined myself in the same horrible situation since I heard about it.

scrubbedexpat091

I would not say those deaths are dismissed and fatal car crashes are investigated and they do tend to make local news.

Car accidents are common daily occurance and things that happen often we tend to not notice as much.

The bus accident in SK with the hockey team, I wonder if it would have gotten the same level of attention had it just been a bus of random people vs a hockey team.


This Southwest death is sad and especially so for her family. But for most people she was a stranger nobody knew of until yesterday.

Not many passengers on a commercial aircraft have been partially sucked out either which makes this a bit of a unusual airline accident.

BristolUK

Not far from here in 2008 there was a similar crash that killed 7 high school student members of the basketball team and the wife of the coach.

That was a major deal here. Major.

Not sure what coverage it got in the rest of Canada but wiki says there was a national day of mourning.

dave_j

I fully appreciate that this is a 'man bites dog' story.

My beef is that road deaths are treated as accidents when in fact they are nothing of the kind and should be treated as such. A driver who drives too close, too fast, too drunk or for any other reason over which he has control does so by an act of will but as a society we choose to make allowances far too often and this puts us all at risk. I know that few mean to kill when they start the engine but that doesn't give them the right to scare the rest of us to death.

In my driving acreer I have had one accident. It happened because I was driving too fast, deliberately fast, too fast for my ability. Nobody was hurt but they could have been. It was a salutary lesson that crippled me financially for a year or two and I never forgot it. It was my fault and had I killed anyone I should have rightly faced the consequences. In the 40+ years since I have driven with respect and not even collected a paint chip, it can be done, you just have to want to do it.

Almost Canadian

I wish to avoid paint chips when driving my car.

However, no matter how hard I try, each year my car's windscreen and paintwork suffers damage from other vehicles that I have no control over as I cannot prevent truck drivers driving without mudguards or drivers crossing into my lane too close to my vehicle. I also have no control over municipalities electing to put "rocks" down rather than clearing snow from the roads. This happens no matter how much I "want to do it."

I'd been very interested to hear what you believe it is I am failing to want to do.

dave_j

I suspect that the tongue is well and truly ebedded within the cheek here and that you're comparing apples and oranges. I was describing a period without 'accidents', and think that stretching the 'accident' argument to include damage resulting from road debris is a paint chip too far.

Novocastrian

Fake news.